I believe cultural intelligence/awareness is very important these days as the world becomes more multicultural and interconnected. In my opinion, anyone who is not inquisitive or receptive to other cultures is really missing out and is living a one-dimensional life.

I use the phrase ‘Everything happens for a reason’ but this morning I read an article from Big Think that described this way of thinking as managing ‘to combine the maximum of ignorance with the maximum of arrogance’. Wow.

This made me think. Why do we use this phrase? I think it might be because sometimes there isn’t an immediate answer to something or something seems inexplicable or ‘unfair’. It is a kind of reassurance that life is not nice sometimes.

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This Big Think article perfectly expresses our ineptitude to remember how painful an experience was. At first hearing this you think NO, I know how bad this was and that day was awwwwwful and don’t even mention last week when… But are we really remembering the pain itself or the event that was painful? For example, last week I had a cold and I was very ill, nauseous, tired, the works. But apart from remembering that I was very ill I can’t remember what it felt like to actually BE ill. This is an interesting concept and the Big Think article begins with the authors account of the pain he went through running a marathon and how he is about to do another one.

The article also discusses Daniel Kahneman’s 2011 book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” which has a whole chapter dedicated to human inability to conceptualize and process pain. (I haven’t yet read the book but will be doing so after IB. :D).

I am sure you have heard of Stephen Wiltshire, commonly known as the ‘Human Camera’. Wiltshire is able to draw the most complicated landscapes after just seeing them once. What is particularly intriguing is that he is autistic and that this is one of the many examples where a perceived ‘defect’ has positive outcomes. Wiltshire is able to draw very detailed pictures which have allowed him to become a famous artist. I thought it was interesting to find out that his primary school encouraged him to draw in order to express his emotions.

Here is an interesting article and short video by Steve Pinker. He discusses the possible ways in which children learn a language. Is it by simply repeating what they have heard? If so why do they say things like ‘more outside’ when they want to play outdoors for longer? No adult would have said this. Or are they just mixing words together from a set of innate rules?